Best Speculative Fiction Finalists

I've been going over and over this trying to decide what to do with these titles, because normally I wouldn't cover them on my clean books blog (maybe Wings, which I'm told you might hand to a twelve-year-old, depending on the kid). The other four books all have serious themes, some have a fair amount of violence, and I understand Warbreaker also has quite a bit of sensuality. (Again, I've read none of the books in this category, so I'm going on what I was told by another author who has read them.) Most of these books have had their movie rights optioned, which means that a production company paid them a chunk of money and called dibs (That's how Dan Wells explained it at LTUE last weekend), but they may or may not ever be turned into movies.

Since I'm highlighting Whitney finalists, I decided to do a single blog with a warning that most of these don't fall in the G to PG rating that I normally cover.

Blurb for Servant of a Dark God:

The launch of a towering new fantasy series introduces an elaborate new world, a strange and dark system of magic, and a cast of compelling characters and monsters. Young Talen lives in a world where the days of a person’s life can be harvested, bought, and stolen. Only the great Divines, who rule every land, and the human soul-eaters, dark ones who steal from man and beast and become twisted by their polluted draws, know the secrets of this power. This land’s Divine has gone missing and soul-eaters are found among Talen’s people.

The Clans muster a massive hunt, and Talen finds himself a target. Thinking his struggle is against both soul-eaters and their hunters, Talen actually has far larger problems. A being of awesome power has arisen, one whose diet consists of the days of man. Her Mothers once ranched human subjects like cattle. She has emerged to take back what is rightfully hers. Trapped in a web of lies and ancient secrets, Talen must struggle to identify his true enemy before the Mother finds the one whom she will transform into the lord of the human harvest.

I'm not going to post more about James Dashner's The Maze Runner, because I posted about that here, which includes the blurb, links to reviews and his book trailer. I'm told the trailer I linked is actually quite a bit more intense than the actual book, but again, I haven't read it yet.

Wings has gotten fabulous reviews, and I might have to go track a copy down myself! there are scads of reviews all over the Internet, including a bunch at Amazon.com. Here's the blurb:

Laurel discovers she is a faerie, sent among humans to protect the gateway to Avalon. Thrust into the midst of a centuries-old battle between faeries and trolls, she's torn between a human and a faerie love, as well as her loyalties to each world. In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

You can learn more about Aprilynne, her books, read her blog, and catch up on her latest news on her website.

I had to check about six websites before I finally found a back cover blurb for this book.

Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago.

Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people.

By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.

I Am Not A Serial Killer is actually a horror novel, so yes, there will definitely be violence, and according to the author himself, some of it is graphic. This book was released in England last year with a red cover, but is coming out in the USA with this cover very soon.

Here's the blurb:
John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it.

He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.

He’s obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn’t want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.

Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat---and to appreciate what that difference means.

Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.

Dan Wells’s debut novel is the first volume of a trilogy that will keep you awake and then haunt your dreams.